Completely & Truthfully
by ColoursPromises
Summary: After destroying the Collector Base, Shepard gave her self up to the Alliance and was put under house arrest. Usually bored out of her mind, a drunken visit from Kaidan shakes things up. Especially since they haven't spoken since Horizon.


The silver moonlight flooded the tiny apartment, only giving the red head enough light to see the streaky glass of red wine, interlaced through her delicate fingertips. She rolled the wine glass up and down between her fore and middle finger and let her other hand be occupied by tapping her nails against the granite countertop. Shepard took a sip of her drink and let the bitter taste linger on her tongue. She was in desperate need of a cigarette but eight years without one, if you counted the last two she hadn't been present, seemed like a lot to throw away. Then again she never had the fate of the galaxy resting on only her and her crippled pilot's shoulders before, so that would be something to take into consideration. The stress and the thought of that blonde doctor with her legs wrapped around the man she needed, made her want to blow up shit with her Widow and throw up at the same time.

The Commander slipped her hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a blue and gold packet of cigarettes she had picked up as she was walking into Anderson's office on Earth to turn herself in. She thought desperate times might have called for desperate measures when she was to be under house arrest until the Alliance figured out what to do with their, once, best marine. She flipped her Pandora's box in her unoccupied left hand. This wasn't Shepard. This was the old her before the Alliance. Before Anderson, and Joker and this pre-Normandy, Shepard was being brought out by heartbreak and past torments. Her heart was constantly in so much pain, if Chakwas hadn't done a full body check up before she was arrested, she would had thought it was actually broken. The raw and immense ache was triggered by the the same every time. The thought of Kaidan never forgiving her, never working it out. She needed him, needed to convince him and help him understand that it was all miscommunication; hurt. Despite the fact she couldn't breath knowing he was somewhere out there and she wasn't by his side, Kaidan had changed and he didn't feel the same way as he had before the last moments of the SSV Normandy SR-1.

The apartment doors slid open and the dim, orange glow from the control panel on the wall revealed a panting Kaidan Alenko with a paper bag covered bottle in hand.

"You!" Kaidan's pointed at the red-head with his bottle, before taking one last gulp and tossing it aside so it rolled under the couch. "You ruined everything!"

"Kaidan?" Was all Shepard managed, trying to figure out if she was in shock because she had not expected him to be here or the fact that she had never seen him yelling or even assertive.

"I was perfectly fine. I had everything under control!" The tan man staggered towards her, throwing his arms up as he rambled. "But then you came back and fucked everything up!"

Unfortunately for Shepard, she wasn't exactly sober either, "I'm sorry, Kaidan! Sorry I came back from the dead and had no recollection of the past two years and I just wanted to find my boyfriend! I should have just left you alone with your work and your bottle blonde! My fucking mistake!"

"Please!" Kaidan braced himself on the countertop beside him and attempted to point at Shepard's hair. "Like that's natural? Who do you think you're fooling, woman? No one is born with fire engine fucking red hair."

Shepard's hand sub consciously flew up to her hair and she smoothed it back into her infamous high bun. She took a sip more of her wine and tucked a loose wave of scarlet behind her ear.

"You know this is real," she shot him a look that could kill, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow and swirled her blood red drink around in her wine glass. "Besides, I never remember the colour running in our showers together."

"I had a clean military record!" Kaidan yelled and was slowly inching closer towards his former love. "No broken regulations, everything was inside the law! Then you showed up. With your, two sizes too small tank tops and your smoky eyes and your endless curves and your long legs and brilliant smile and your fucking showers and you fucked everything up. And now you're back again!"

Shepard felt like she'd been ripped through by shrapnel and somehow numbed, possibly by the ridiculous amounts of alcohol she had in taken. She surveyed her former lieutenant for traces of the reserved, collected man she had once known. He was nowhere to be found. Kaidan had grown better looking with age, but at the same time it looked like the last two years had not been kind to him. The bags under his eyes looked almost as if they were scars, permanently there. He had more strands of grey mixed in his salt and pepper hair, then when she had last seen him on Horizon. He was larger, bulkier, more muscle had filled him out and it seemed like he had seen a lot of action on the battlefield since they had parted so long ago.

"I'm sorry I fell for you!" The indestructible commander let her guard down for a split second. "That I wanted you!"

"Give me a break," Kaidan's somber chuckle was harsh and abrupt. He continued closing the space between them, using the granite for support. "You didn't need me! You were Commander fucking Shepard! I couldn't even help you when I wanted to."

It was Shepard's turn to glide in a little closer, not unlocking her eyes from his. They were the same as she remembered, deep rich chocolate. They were the place she would run to when she was afraid and she could tell his exterior was slowly melting away. The two former squad mates were each taking strategic turns to dance this dance, only they were to drunk to make it look even remotely graceful.

"I'm the exact same woman that I was two years ago." Shepard calmed her voice and though she had brought it down to a normal tone, her words were dripped with resentment. "Only difference now is that you're too drunk to see it."

"No you're not! The woman I loved could do anything, except she couldn't cook for shit! I mean she burnt water!" Kaidan's accusations began to softly transition into bitter, reminiscent regret. "She was grumpy unless you woke her up with morning sex and her favourite alcoholic beverage was beer, but she only ever drank it while eating cherries. She came off as indestructible, until you tickle the back of her knees because he legs would give out. And she's the only person that I completely and truthfully loved."

"Listen! The only thing that's changed between us is you!" Shepard cried out, bewildered at his allegations. "You're saying it was all a game to me? You really don't believe I died? You think I've been, what? Secretly working with Cerberus? Have the last two years turned you so cold that you think I would keep you in the dark?"

"You died, Shepard!" Kaidan yelled so loud his momentarily lost control of his biotics and his whole body shone a bright blue. "You died and you left! I lost the only thing I ever loved, the only thing I fought for and the only thing that kept me alive was the thought that I couldn't let everything you worked for vanished! I needed to keep some part of you with me! That's all I had left! So don't ask me if the last two years of me life were hard for me!"

Kaidan stood rigid showing no sign of any other emotion than anger, but Shepard saw hesitation in his eyes flicker like a flame, as she moved closer to closing the last bit of room between them. "I prayed for you to come back. But not likes this, Shepard."

"Well, you should have been more specific," Shepard didn't have the energy to roll her eyes, but the evident sarcasm was intertwined into every word. She massaged her temples, while her elbows rested on the countertop. Shepard wasn't sure if it was emotional drain from the argument or the alcohol. "Look, Kaidan-"

"Don't you Kaidan me!" The biotic interrupted. "Do you want me, Shepard?"

The commander's laugh was abrupt and had more malice then intended.

"Because I've given this a lot of thought, over the last few months." Kaidan continued explaining what he meant, but she'd heard enough.

"You're drunk," Shepard simple statement was no more then a loud whisper, ever word was spoken through a smug smirk. "Go home."

"So are you! Now, do you want me?" Kaidan raised his voices a little louder so Shepard could her the underlying desperation for an answer between every word.

"Yes, okay?" Shepard finally yelled back, her hands now shaking. "Well no, but-"

Her indecisive answer was more than enough for Kaidan and he didn't know if it was the liquor that made him do it or that his longing to just touch Shepard over the last two and a half years was too overwhelming, but with the last gulp of the red-head's wine, he finally closed the gap between them as he walked closer and pulled her hips into his. His mouth crushed against hers and she bit his bottom lip as he lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. Kaidan carried her over to the living room and pushed her up against the window, kissing every inch of her neck he didn't bother wasting time working his way down. The biotic lifted his ex-girlfriend's leg above his shoulder and ripped off her black stocking, embracing the inside of her thigh with string of kisses before beginning on the other leg.

Shepard didn't realize just how much battle the recently promoted commander had seen. She remembered being in nothing but wrapped in white linen sheets on their shore leave in Kaidan's Vancouver apartment. Laying in bed all day while they took turns finding scars on their bodies and telling each other the stories behind them. It looked like he had many new stories to tell from the past two years and she kissed every new bruise she found, perhaps giving him a new one on his neck.

It wasn't long before he pulled her tank top off and threw it across the room so it was lost among regulations and care.


End file.
